ected for the use of the British Army.

The _Annuaire Statistique de la France, 1917_, values the entire house
property of France at $11,900,000,000 (59.5 milliard francs).[84] An
estimate current in France of $4,000,000,000 (20 milliard francs) for
the destruction of house property alone is, therefore, obviously wide of
the mark.[85] $600,000,000 at pre-war prices, or say $1,250,000,000 at
the present time, is much nearer the right figure. Estimates of the
value of the land of France (apart from buildings) vary from
$12,400,000,000 to $15,580,000,000, so that it would be extravagant to
put the damage on this head as high as $500,000,000. Farm Capital for
the whole of France has not been put by responsible authorities above
$2,100,000,000.[86] There remain the loss of furniture and machinery,
the damage to the coal-mines and the transport system, and many other
minor items. But these losses, however serious, cannot be reckoned in
value by hundreds of millions of dollars in respect of so small a part
of France. In short, it will be difficult to establish a bill exceeding
$2,500,000,000 for _physical and material_ damage in the occupied and
devastated areas of Northern France.[87] I am confirmed in this estimate
by the opinion of M. Rene Pupin, the author of the most comprehensive
and scientific estimate of the pre-war wealth of France,[88] which I did
not come across until after my own figure had been arrived at. This
authority estimates the material losses of the invaded regions at from
$2,000,000,000 to $3,000,000,000 (10 to 15 milliards),[89] between which
my own figure falls half-way.

Nevertheless, M. Dubois, speaking on behalf of the Budget Commission of
the Chamber, has given the figure of $13,000,000,000 (65 milliard
francs) "as a minimum" without counting "war levies, losses at sea, the
roads, or the loss of public monuments." And M. Loucheur, the Minister
of Industrial Reconstruction, stated before the Senate on the 17th
February, 1919, that the reconstitution of the devastated regions would
involve an expenditure of $15,000,000,000 (75 milliard francs),--more
than double M. Pupin's estimate of the entire wealth of their
inhabitants. But then at that time M. Loucheur was taking a prominent
part in advocating the claims of France before the Peace Conference,
and, like others, may have found strict veracity inconsistent with the
demands of patriotism.[90]

The figure discussed so far is not, however, the totali